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Dance Halls, Masquerades, Body Protest and the Law: the Female Body As a Redemptive Tool Against Trinidad’S Gender-Biased Laws

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Dance Halls, Masquerades, Body Protest and the Law: the Female Body As a Redemptive Tool Against Trinidad’S Gender-Biased Laws 08_ALEXANDRE.DOC 4/28/2006 8:56 AM DANCE HALLS, MASQUERADES, BODY PROTEST AND THE LAW: THE FEMALE BODY AS A REDEMPTIVE TOOL AGAINST TRINIDAD’S GENDER-BIASED LAWS MICHÈLE ALEXANDRE* I. INTRODUCTION Male domination of the female body is the basic material reality of women’s lives; and all struggle for dignity and self-determination is rooted in the struggle for actual control of one’s own body . .1 The very word erotic comes from the Greek word eros, the personification of love in all its aspects─born of Chaos, and personifying creative power and harmony. When I speak of the erotic, then, I speak of it as an assertion of the lifeforce of women; of that creativity energy empowered, the knowledge and use of which we are now reclaiming in our language, our history, our dancing, our loving, our work, our lives.2 Aristophanes’ play, Lysistrata, tells of a group of women who withhold sex from their husbands until their husbands make peace with the Spartans.3 This simple story creates a powerful image of these women’s awareness of their bodies’ inherent power. This awareness, arguably, pushes them to present the body as a tool capable of triggering change. While this may, at first glance, seem a story of manipulation, it is actually a celebration of the power and redemptive qualities of women’s bodies. The female body has long been the subject of awe, shame, and controversy. Women who have expressed themselves through their bodies have traditionally been typecast as loose and oversexed by both men and women alike. Such * Assistant Professor of Law at The University of Memphis, Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law; B.A. Colgate University, J.D. Harvard Law School. The author thanks the Fulbright Foundation for its support and for facilitating the rewarding and fulfilling academic and cultural exchange that was her Fulbright Fellowship. The author also thanks Dr. Patricia Mohammed, Imani Perry, Dr. Rhoda Reddock, Janet Richards, Kindaka Sanders, Kevin Smith, and Yao Sores for their comments and support. Finally, the author thanks her student research assistant, Ms. Vanessa Cross. This article gained much from presenting it at the University of West Indies’ Centre for Gender and Development Studies’ Luncheon Seminars, at the Second Annual People of Color Legal Scholarship Conference held at the George Washington University Law School and at the Feminist Legal Theory Conference held at John Marshall University, on February 19, 2005. 1. ANDREA DWORKIN, PORNOGRAPHY: MEN POSSESSING WOMEN 203 (E. P. Dutton 1989) (1979). 2. AUDRE LORDE, Uses of the Erotic, in SISTER OUTSIDER 53, 55 (1984). 3. See ARISTOPHANES, LYSISTRATA (Douglass Parker trans., Signet Classic 1970) (centering around a group of women in Athens led by Lysistrata who, outraged at having lost their sons to war, agree to deny their husbands sexual intercourse until they make peace with the Spartans). 177 08_ALEXANDRE.DOC 4/28/2006 8:56 AM 178 DUKE JOURNAL OF GENDER LAW & POLICY Volume 13:177 2006 judgment is symptomatic of the existence of “sexual profiling” in all cultures. In this article, sexual profiling refers to the assumptions made regarding women who express themselves through their bodies. Social stereotypes regarding “morality” are generally used to evaluate women’s behaviors and justify sexual profiling. An analysis of the effects of sexual profiling on female bodily expression reveals that laws and social constructs conspire to restrict women’s autonomy and freedom of expression. Moreover, sexual profiling has even impacted feminist jurisprudence’s view of female bodily expression. This impact is evidenced by the fact that, thus far, feminist jurisprudence has neglected to embrace the female body as a tool for redemption and liberation. However, such an omission has not derailed female bodily expression. In all cultures there are women who use their bodies to fight patriarchy and resist gender-biased laws and assumptions. Therefore, this article argues that feminist jurisprudence must identify women’s bodies as tools for redemption against sexism and patriarchy. This article uses Trinidad as an example of a society in which patriarchal laws that control women’s bodies abound.4 Specific Trinidadian laws perpetuate society’s widespread stereotypes of women’s bodies and continue the tacit sexual profiling of women. Despite these disadvantages, poor women in Trinidad have used and continue to use the body as a tool for resistance. Trinidadian women’s use of their bodies to fight patriarchy is referred to in this article as “body protest.” The term “body protest” is coined here to describe women’s use of the female body as a mode of expression and as a tool for liberation and transformation. If we “read” these women’s bodies, we witness an organic feminism that should lead us (academic feminists) to recognize our own internalized sexism and our limitations in arguing for women’s liberation. Trinidadian women lead us to a deeper understanding of the role of the body in gender liberation. This article attempts to further the feminist discourse by demonstrating how embracing the female body as a redemptive tool can lead to a more liberated, inclusive and effective feminist movement. This article consists of six parts. The first part explores the concept of body protest. The second part provides a history of the traditional stereotypes attached to women’s bodies and discusses the effects of body politics on women. The third part consists of an assessment of feminist theory’s treatment of the female body. The fourth part deals with Trinidadian women’s use of their bodies to reverse gender constructs and explores how body politics in Trinidad should inform potential legal reforms. Finally, the fifth and sixth parts discuss the lack of protection provided by Trinidadian jurisprudence to Trinidadian women and incorporate a proposal for women-centric legal reforms in Trinidadian law. II. BODY PROTEST DEFINED This article explores body protest, its manifestations and the challenges that its practitioners face. Body protest consists of the use of women’s bodies by 4. This paper concentrates on women’s struggle in an international setting to illustrate the need for international coalition-building among women. 08_ALEXANDRE.DOC 4/28/2006 8:56 AM BODY PROTEST 179 women to challenge gender restrictions and to activate women-centric legal reforms.5 It also encompasses the therapeutic goals of asserting dominance over one’s body and of facilitating one’s expression of womanhood in revolt against a patriarchal society. Instances of body protest include, but are not limited to, women’s use of their bodies through dance, dressing, performance arts, etc. For example, certain women choose to dance suggestively, dress contrary to societal standards of propriety, perform sexually explicit artistic roles, bring attention to specific body parts, and adopt sexually explicit personas in order to highlight the societal restraints imposed on them. The non-legitimization of body protest by feminist jurisprudence is directly related to stereotypes associated with the employ of the female body. These stereotypes hinder potentially beneficial uses of the female body by designating many of its liberating functions as immoral. The societal attitudes engendered by these stereotypes also explain the legal system’s reluctance to protect body protest. This lack of protection, consequently, leaves women who choose this valuable form of resistance unprotected and vulnerable. An exploration of body protest reveals the existing diversity inherent in women’s experiences and struggles. This diversity benefits rather than harms feminist jurisprudence. A more inclusive feminist jurisprudence will result from the inclusion of these organic feminists’ remedies. These organic feminists can also join forces with academic feminists to form a stronger task force against patriarchy. Recognizing body protest as a feminist endeavor is not without its challenges. It requires accepting the possibility that women’s experiences and struggles do not always fit in the already established feminist categories. Still, analyzing the reasons that motivate body protest will also provide feminist jurisprudence with a clearer understanding of the tacit ways in which law oppresses women. Body protest is organic feminists’ response to the widespread sexual profiling that they encounter daily in the social, political and familial spheres of their lives. Feminists must realize the entrenchment of sexual profiling in these spheres in order to effectively combat patriarchy. As suggested by Moira Gatens: [F]eminists have offered little by way of a coherent theory of the body. In particular, there has been little critical work done on the conceptual dimension of the relations between women’s bodies and the state: between the body of woman and the body politic. In the absence of such theory, it is culturally dominant conceptions of the body that, unconsciously, many feminists work with.6 It is time for a deeper understanding by feminist jurisprudence of how dominant conceptions continue to oppress women. Such new understanding 5. Body protest also might fall under critical legal studies’ notion of flipping or “[a]ppropriating the central idea of your opponent’s argument-bite and claiming that it leads to just the opposite result from the one she proposes.” Duncan Kennedy, A Semiotics of Legal Argument, 42 SYRACUSE L. REV. 75, 87 (1991). This article, however, argues that organic feminists, as exemplified by certain Trinidadian women, go beyond flipping the patriarchal structure by actively questioning and combating it through the deliberate use of their bodies. 6. See generally Rose Weitz, A History of Women’s Bodies, in THE POLITICS OF WOMEN’S BODIES 3 (Rose Weitz ed., 2d ed. 2003), for similar argument. 08_ALEXANDRE.DOC 4/28/2006 8:56 AM 180 DUKE JOURNAL OF GENDER LAW & POLICY Volume 13:177 2006 will then allow feminist jurisprudence to combat gender-biased rules more effectively. III. HISTORY OF THE TRADITIONAL CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE FEMALE BODY Sexual profiling is rooted in the gender stereotypes historically associated with women’s bodies.
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